Obsession
by rufliane
Summary: Born into Victorian aristocracy, Flora Lawrence has always believed a mysterious omnipresent angel born out of the ink of her mother's pen commandeers her life and will take her away one day soon. But this belief, fueled by tears and tragedy throughout her life, eventually leads her to a delirious apex; a living, breathing vessel for her obsession and a rose-perfumed potion...


**{A/N}** Hello everyone! So this is my first story to focus on the Amnesia universe, and I'm super excited!

I've had this idea in my head for quite a while now, but I never really jumped upon the opportunity. Recently, though, two things have inspired me to write this: a fellow author named **SSSoto **who is writing her own Amnesia series about Daniel's life starting from Hazel's birth (the first of which is named **Memoirs)** which stays very true to canon and is extremely well-written so I suggest if you like this story you should read hers- and a book entitled **The Miniaturist** by **Jessie Burton** which, although set further back in time than this story, really opened my eyes to historical fiction and peculiar, slightly taboo subjects that made me audibly gasp with excitement and genuine shock.

This story is primarily focused on Flora Lawrence, an introverted young woman who has received guidance throughout her life which she perceives as right, except that it isn't-far from it. It starts off as her mother, deluded after Flora's father left her, tells her that an angel (whose entire character is based off of the girl's mysterious father) watches over her day in, day out. Flora takes it for granted when she is younger, but it slowly builds up and escalates into full on psychosis, rocketed there by events that could have been avoided. The pinnacle is really when she meets a young man who immediately becomes infatuated with her, and Flora starts wondering if she could perhaps live her obsession through a different means.

However, that isn't all. I want this story to stay true to canon so I have researched a lot-everything from Victorian views on redheads to the durability of book spines, it's all here. I may still get a few things wrong, though.

Daniel and Hazel are in this story as characters who play some part in Flora's climb to insanity, and I will say that Daniel is for a while an insignificant love interest, but that is not the only point of his character. You'll find it ends in tears, and that's what I intended.

Also, Alois does not appear physically in this story, but there is heavy mention of his family and the Florbelles, as well as plenty of allusions to their own events. I wonder if you can figure out what connections Flora has to them?

**I must warn you though - this story will become _extremely detailed_ _and graphic _**** in its later chapters; and will also touch upon topics such as homosexuality, abuse, rape, incest and as is classic in most Amnesia fics: torture and gore.**

So if you are offended or uncomfortable from the mention of these things, this story is unfortunately not for you.

But if you want to keep reading, please do. Fall in love with the characters, delve into the atmosphere and live the story of **Obsession**.

* * *

_**14th February, 1824**_

The sky outside was dark and heavy, heaving with rain. The clouds rolled continuously against themselves, hurling and tossing into infinity. The thick sheet of grey occasionally shot through with forked lightning, spears of Hell twisting among the clouds, an army of insanity.

Inside a suburban mansion, scattered with ivy and moss and hidden away in a Knightsbridge grove, a woman was giving birth, the storm outside echoing her own turmoil. Relief rippled throughout the young woman's exhausted frame, mingling with her own pain as her eyes fell upon her child's head, crowning from between her legs.

**_It will all be over soon.  
_**

Another jolt of thunder seized her body, a forceful push that told her to keep going.

She couldn't help feeling ashamed. The pool of blood beneath her body, disgustingly scattered with mucus and goodness knows what else reminded her it was her own fault.

**_You did this, Elizabeth. You trusted this man and was convinced he would return. You were convinced he would not go back to the pond, becoming a frog once more. And he did._**

**_But he will return, somehow, some day, he will. I know he will. I will not rest until he returns._**

She was absolutely sure she could not wash these sheets after, if she could even get up. They would most definitely have to be burned in the garden, a morbid offering to God stacked high upon the pyre. A final, monstrous heave that almost made her very soul collapse, and her baby was out, a cruel, disgraceful entrance to the world as its face was immediately contaminated by its mother's blood.

Elizabeth took up her child, unsure of how to hold it. She quickly dabbed at its mottled face with a damp cloth, and it let out its first sound, a fretful wail that sent a painful tremor through its mother's ears.

The child was early, and had put her through a lot of stress and agony during the past eight and a half months. She tried to conceal it as best as she could, but the bump was prominent even under her thick winter coat. An embarrassed flush crept across Elizabeth's cheeks as she remembered the catcalling lads, the horrible jeers they sent her way. They called her a whore, an indecent toy whose only purpose was to provide gratuitous pleasure.

And by nature, she was. She had given her body and soul to this stranger, who had charmed her for no more than a month, falling into his promises of safety, who had left her after they had got it done-writhing under the rising and falling covers, convinced they were hidden from God's watchful eye. He had claimed her innocence; what little remained, that is.

When she was a child, she was told it was a sin to engage in carnal acts, to succumb to lustful desires before marriage. She was told if she did so, when she died she would be cast down to Hell, branded a sinner and forced to forever reside along with the sodomites, the thieves, the heretics, the murderers, the drunkards and the prostitutes, a myriad of ungodly characters clustered in an infernal realm for eternity. These threatening tales caused her to despair, to be scared of everything the world had to offer. And now here she was, an unmarried woman festering in her own blood with the product of a relationship of deceit upon her chest.

She felt guilty. Blamed. _Confused_.

But, she looked down at her child, almost searching for a strange kind of sympathy. Although it was still covered in the remnants of its birth, it seemed oddly peaceful. This was her baby. Her soul and his soul combined in one precious, tiny life, a story combined, and the thought of that brought some comfort to her at least. She closed her eyes. The pain still ebbed through her as she, tired, cut the cord that attached her to her baby.

This child was flesh and bone. It was hers. Her responsibility. Her own canvas.

Her eyes opened again to two bright blue spheres blinking back at her, framed with miniscule brown lashes. Fair curls sat upon the baby's head, thick.

Elizabeth saw her love reflected in the masterpiece before her. She vowed to protect this child for as long as she lived, for she bore the only connection to the stranger who she only knew as Gabriel.

"_**It is not my real name. You will find that although I am as my pseudonym suggests, my actual name bears quite a different relatio**__**n**._" a voice resonated in her mind. His tone was pure honey, a stream of sweetness that sunk deep into her core. He was well-versed, his strange Algerian accent only embellishing his quirky beauty. She ached at the memories of him that remained, the smile that made her heart skip merrily when she saw it, the laugh that jostled her soul, his kiss that lasted long after he left for France almost a year ago.

But then Elizabeth remembered. The child was _not_ the only physical remnant of him she had left.

A wilted ghost of a rose, its once lustrous petals now paled to an ugly hue of carmine, its once beautiful, proud stem wrinkled and starved of sap, stood on her writing desk down the hall. The rose Gabriel gave her. Right next to his parting gift, a beautiful crystal, a smooth cobalt soapstone that held an odd, overwhelming power she could not describe.

Elizabeth pressed her lips to the child's head, the colour in her baby's eyes reflecting the orb's own majesty, the auspicious curls on her head reminiscent of the gentle rose's petals.

"I will name you Flora." Elizabeth consecrated, her voice rushing with both excitement and maternal blessedness.

**"Flora Sapphire Lawrence. I will give you what I never had. I will give you my all."**


End file.
